Exhausted
by Aphrodite Roslin
Summary: Deep inside, Wilson believes if he cares enough, he'll never have to die. HW friendship with some Cuddy mixed in. Contains attempted suicide. Spoilers for SoCG and WhacaMole


When House woke up that morning, it felt just like any other day. He opened his eyes, his leg hurt, he dry swallowed a Vicodin, he closed his eyes again, and then tried to go back to sleep. It was his day off, and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to enjoy it. He knew that once he'd woken up, he would never get totally back to sleep, but that didn't stop him from allowing himself to drift away into that pleasant nowhere somewhere in between consciousness and unconsciousness. It was the one place on this earth that he could be both awake and relatively pain free at the same time. So you can imagine just how incredibly irked he was when his cell phone began ringing relentlessly in his ear. Hadn't he turned that off before going to bed? He always did.

"This had better be important or else you're going to find yourself short one incredibly valuable diagnostician," he snapped as a greeting after the caller id confirmed it was Cuddy.

"Have you seen Wilson today?" she ignored his temper, her voice filled with what House thought to surely be unnecessary concern.

"Now why would I want to do a thing like that?" House was so not in the mood to talk about his **former** best friend.

"It's almost eleven and he hasn't shown up for work yet," Cuddy continued oblivious to the root of House's irritability.

"Maybe he missed the bus," House snorted maliciously.

"House, that's not funny. He would never have had to ride that stupid bus if it weren't for you," Cuddy scolded, mild anger creeping into her voice at House's vindictiveness. "Anyway, that can't be it. He went to pick up his things from his car last night, so he has his cell phone. But he hasn't answered any of my calls. I'm getting a little anxious over here."

"Why couldn't he have missed the bus?" House backtracked, confused at that statement.

"He's not riding it anymore," Cuddy responded as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Dr. Brown went out of town for the month on vacation, and told Wilson if he could catch a cab to his house, he could borrow his car until he got back. Wilson didn't tell you?"

"Sorry, the misses and I aren't exactly on speaking terms right now. We've decided to see other people. Doing anything Friday night?"

"House, what are you talking about?" Cuddy sounded completely bewildered.

"I'm officially in the market for a new best friend. Got any suggestions?" House elaborated. "If I get one before Wilson, I win a lifetime supply of happiness."

"What happened?" Cuddy's voice was now sympathetic. House wondered vaguely how many emotions he could make her run through before the end of this conversation.

"I pushed to hard this time," he answered simply. There was a pause on the other line.

"I'm sorry," check sadness off the list. House had to admit he was surprised at this reaction. Usually when he and Wilson fought, Cuddy would say something sarcastic about them being worse than a married couple and that they needed to kiss and make up before they froze the hospital solid with their cold shoulders and icy glares. This reaction was different and unwelcome. Suddenly House was feeling a little queasy.

"Everything's conditional," he all but whispered in response. Cuddy said nothing, and Wilson's voice rang through his head, _'One day our friendship will break and that'll just prove your theory that relationships are conditional and you don't need human connection or deserve it or whatever is going on in that rat maze of your brain.' _"Where does he live?"

"Huh?" Cuddy asked, caught of guard by the unexpected question.

"Brown. Where's he live? I'll swing by and see if his car's still in the garage," House continued casually, as if it weren't the last thing either of them expected him to say. "I'm out of milk anyway."

"Oh, um, hang on a second," shuffling could be heard through the phone. "He lives at 203321 Baltic Blvd. Think you can find it?"

"Yeah, I know the street. Shouldn't be too hard to find the number," House confirmed.

"Okay, if you find him, tell him he had better have a really good explanation," Cuddy tried to sound light-hearted. It wasn't working very well. "And if you don't," she paused, sounding grim once again, "keep looking." House said nothing. Cuddy hung up.

Not twenty minutes later, House found himself turning off of Christie Rd. and onto Baltic Blvd. The first house number in sight was 56843. Great. He always turned down the wrong end of the street. It only took a little under three minutes to reach the houses numbered in the 20000s. House slowed his speed so as not to miss the right house and have to turn around at the end of the road. Once he spotted number 203321, he made a sharp turn into the blacktop paved driveway, not bothering with a turn signal for the lack of fellow motorists, and shut off his bike. The garage door was closed, as it should have been, and House knew he'd have to get inside to check things out. Hmm, he hadn't really thought this part over.

"Hey, Wilson, you in there?" he called through the door. It didn't seem promising. If Wilson were inside, there would be no point in closing the door behind himself. Shrugging, House turned around and made his way back toward his bike, pulling out his cell phone in the process and dialing Wilson's. He'd just begun to raise the kickstand when a sound from behind him forced him to stop. Wilson's ringtone. House recognized it easily because it was his as well. Slowly he followed the sound back to the garage door. He pressed his ear against the thin metal door and felt his heart drop to his stomach. Wilson's cell phone wasn't the only thing turned on in the small one-car garage.

Fearing the worst, House bolted for the front door as quickly as his bum leg would allow. He was mildly surprised to find it unlocked but then thought it was reasonable that Wilson had entered the same way. Once inside, he didn't bother closing the door. Instead he made a dead limping dash straight to the left. It didn't take long to find the door to the garage, also unlocked. House couldn't help but notice the strong odor of gasoline that had filled this wing of the two-story mansion. His hand shook as it turned the handle and flung the door open. He started forward with the door, but was immediately forced backward as the trapped exhaust from the running car engine came flooding into his lungs, choking him.

"Wilson!" he yelled between coughs, praying for a response but knowing none was coming. House backed away from the room just long enough to get on final deep breath of relatively fresh air then forced himself into the deadly fog. He spotted Wilson immediately, lying limp in the driver's seat of the black SUV. House was at his side in an instant, calling out his name as he ripped the door open and shut the engine off, his cane clanking to the ground beside him. Placing his arms under Wilson's, he put every bit of strength and endurance he had into pulling the younger man out of the car and dragging his limp body inside the house to safety.

House drug Wilson as far away from the smell of exhaust fumes as he could before allowing them both to collapse onto the blue carpeted floor of Dr. Brown's living room.

"Wilson!" House yelled again.

"Howz?" the young man mumbled softly, his forehead scrunched and his eyes still closed.

"Wilson, it's me! You need to wake up!" House grabbed both sides of the oncologist's face, giving the right side a few less than gentle taps.

"Wha…no…go'way…don't…can't…" Wilson continued to mumble, his eyes blinking open and closed. House gripped his face tighter.

"Wilson, look at me! I need you to focus! Can you do that for me?" House continued to shout, hoping it would keep the other man awake. Wilson tried to speak once more but choked instead as his body stiffened and began convulsing violently. "Damn it, Wilson, don't do this to me!" he screamed, holding his friend as still as possible as his body twitched and fitted helplessly. House's eyes stung as he listened helplessly to Wilson's gagging breaths. When had things gotten this bad? Why hadn't anyone noticed? The seizure lasted a good two minutes before the oncologist's body went limp and still. Deathly still.

"Wilson! No! No! Don't you dare do this to me!" House yelled as he put took Wilson's wrist in his hand and put an ear next to his mouth. The older man's blood ran cold. No pulse. He wasn't breathing. Immediately, House tilted Wilson's head back, fit his mouth over the younger man's and breathed into him. Leaning up only a fraction, his lips still just barely touching the other man's, House took a deep breath and breathed into him once more. Sitting up slightly, he found the tip of Wilson's sternum and began compressing the motionless chest, praying to any god who would listen to spare his best friend's life. _'Deep inside, Wilson believes if he cares enough, he'll never have to die.' _If only that were true. Then Wilson wouldn't have been lying there, blue and covered in his own vomit, more of his life dissipating with every passing second.

"Jimmy!" Breath. "Please!" Breath. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. "Come on!" One. Two. Three. Four. Five. "Don't give up this easy!" Breath. "Don't even think about it!" Breath. "Don't you dare leave me!" One. Two. Three. Four. Five. "Don't leave me alone!" Whimper. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. His mouth clamped over Wilson's once more, forcing life-giving oxygen into his still lungs. House's vision was getting blurry. How long had he been doing this? He had no idea. He didn't even care. Better to suffocate himself and die with Wilson than to keep living without him. One more breath. A harsh, strangled sound resonated from the younger man's throat, and suddenly both men could breathe again.

"House?" Wilson coughed, his hand reaching out blindly in front of him. House grabbed it instinctively, holding it tight.

"I'm right here, Wilson," he reassured, relief pouring from every orifice of his body.

"It…hurt…" the young man whimpered, trying to force his eyes to stay open for more than a second. House squeezed his hand tighter, understanding what his friend was trying to tell him.

"I know. It's okay. I've got you now, Jimmy," he stroked his thumb over Wilson's fingers, attempting to calm him as much as possible. "Lie still, all right? I'm gonna call for an ambulance." As it turns out, this was the wrong thing to say.

" No!" Wilson panicked, knowing what happened to suicidal patients. "No, no, please! Don't!" For someone who'd been recently revived, he sure had a lot of gusto. House, who already had his cell phone out of his pocket, dropped it to the floor and placed his hand on the frightened man's cheek.

"Jimmy, listen to me! I'm going to take care of you all right? I won't let anything happen to you," he soothed, smoothing his fingertips across Wilson's soft skin. They stayed that way for a moment, until House was satisfied that Wilson had sufficiently calmed down. Carefully taking his hand away from his friend's face, House picked his phone back up and dialed.

"What happened?" Cuddy asked as they stood outside Wilson's room in the PPTH Intensive Care Unit.

"He took the car out for a spin last night, pulled an all night self-pity party; wound up getting drunk and passing out in the driver's seat. Lucky you called me when you did. Another couple minutes and he'd have been toast," House answered casually, staring through the glass at his only friend. Cuddy said nothing at first. She simply watched the man standing beside her with a long, calculating gaze before nodding her head in an understanding and resigning way.

"Okay. If you're sure," she replied almost in question form. House turned his head to face her then.

"I'm sure," he replied confidently. He knew Cuddy could read him like a book, but that didn't matter. He knew she'd keep the details confidential if he was certain it was for the best. Turning back to face Wilson, wires and tubes running out of just about every imaginable place, he knew it was. Wilson had been there and taken care of him for all of these years. He'd be damned if he wasn't going to do the same for Wilson. After all, everybody lies.

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Thank You for sticking through and finishing the story! Please leave a review on the way out. It'd be nice to hear your thoughts! 


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